Why has Pete Sixsmith abandoned non-league football, the paqes of Salut! Sunderland, his cat Samson and – just days ahead of Bolton away – the intensive psychological training considered essential for those planning to attend SAFC games?
What are we to read between the lines of a mysterious text message sent from what was meant to be a secret location detached from the British mainland?
Regulars at Salut! Sunderland know the drill well enough.
We try as best we can to tell it how it is from the moment one match finishes until it seems right to suspend hostilities/stop gloating (usually the former, alas) and get behind the team for the next one. We try not to be, in the never-to-be forgotten words of one reader, a cauldron of negativity.
M Salut’s preference for leaving the momentous decision until we’ve completed our October AND November games was already controversially kind. One down after 28 seconds, without a forward on the pitch, it was looking almost irresponsibly benevolent. Pete Sixsmith, hardly a kneejerk Bruce Out man, is rapidly losing faith …
As I placed my well upholstered bottom on my well upholstered Ashburton Grove seat, I sat back in anticipation of a battling performance against an out of sorts Arsenal side.
Rather less than 60 seconds later, bottom was out of seat as Mignolet picked ball out of the net after Les Gunners had carved us open down the flank and the imperious van bloody Persie swept home a goal of breathtaking quality. Not quite the start we had hoped for, was it?
He annoyed us by starting without a forward and nearly nicked a point. A Song renamed Cattermole might have been sent off. But it all went to script in the end (as it might have done a lot earlier). Steve Bruce‘s post-match e-mail regrets missed chances, but points to positives …
Dear Colin,
We had an awful start, just like the West Brom game, but again we showed enough resilience and fight to get back in the game.
It’s just a shame that [Robin] Van Persie, a world-class player, came up with piece of magic at the end. He is worth the entrance fee alone.
This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday …
The second week of a non-football fortnight, as it has been for those who care little for internationals, has been a busy old time at Salut! Sunderland. Here is a resume for readers who do not visit the site every day, starting with something that isn’t in the headline but should be …
Jonathan Wilson is widely acclaimed as one of the best football writers around. You can read him in The Guardian, in his own books (his Brian Clough biography is due out soon) and, as of this week, Salut! Sunderland.
A truly magical piece of writing, about an unbreakable attachment to Sunderland AFC passed down from one generation to the next, appeared first at the SB Info Plus website but was reproduced here with the permission both the writer and the site. Several people who read it were, like me, deeply moved by Jonathan’s words.
Arsenal v Sunderland. We’ve heard from an Arsenal fan (click here if you missed it). But what exactly do we want from this traditionally difficult game? Pete Sixsmith has a modest shopping list …
On Sunday morning, the alarm clock will be set for 3.45am and I shall be waiting at Thinford Roundabout for the coach at 5.15, ready for a sleepy trip down to Ashburton Grove.
It’s a long day, we won’t get home until 10pm and there is every chance that it will be a defeat, heavy or otherwise. So, what do I want from Sunday?
* I want to walk away from Asburton Grove with my head held high after witnessing a determined and gritty Sunderland performance that makes me proud to follow one of the oldest and most distinguished clubs in Europe.
Well, when not bragging about the Salut! Sunderland exclusive – Sunderland, the play, wowing Parisian theatregoers – we were on a hunt for a Gooner. Piers Morgan haughtily turned us away last season, so we asked Mike Amos, Shildon lad but Arsenal nut (his dad was a Londoner, but then so was mine so he should still rethink his allegiances). Sadly Mike, newly retired from close on half a century at the Northern Echo, admitted he had lost touch a little with matters Arsenal. A case of “I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Arsenal till half time”. Rupert and Monty were too busy finding each other (for those familiar with the Emirates public address system). So Mike’s son, Owen, a BBC journalist who doesn’t really think the Gunners will go down, stepped up from the bench …
Salut! Sunderland has been asked to give a little space to a fund-racing project bringing together the football charity Street League and the table football people Foosball UK..
Street League sets out to deliver “football and employability programmes to some of the UK’s most disadvantaged young people” and claims “countless success stories” working with 16-25 year olds who may be unemployed, not in education or training or had trouble with the courts or substance abuse.
Regular sessions for jobless young people are held at City Space in Sunderland and Temple Park leisure centre in South Shields, as well as many other parts of the North East where Sunderland supporters are less likely to be found.
Whatever the French can do, the English do better. Or just differently.
You heard earlier this week about Clément Koch’s black comedy for the Parisian stage, entitled and set in Sunderland and owing something to his observations while a student at Durham.
Since Salut! Sunderland‘s piece appeared – see here – it has been in The Times and Independent and on the Today programme – Sunderland apparently described there as being on Teesside – as well as on Ready To Go and the Newcastle pages at not606.com